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Election 2012

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan will hold a town hall teleconference with Ralph Reed, the disgraced former head of the Christian Coalition who is making a political comeback with a conservative voter turnout project called the Faith and Freedom Coalition. That group is sending voters flyers warning that reelecting Obama would allow the president to “complete America’s destruction.” They also compare Obama’s policies to the threat posed to America by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

For all Paul Ryan’s talk about values, it’s worth remembering who his pal Ralph Reed is: a self-enriching win-at-any-cost political operative whose own campaign for office was tanked by revelations of Reed’s involvement in a scandal with Jack Abramoff, the convicted corrupt lobbyist who helped Reed get business “humping in corporate accounts” after he left the Christian Coalition and started his own consulting firm.

There are few political operatives active today that are as ruthless and cynical as Ralph Reed.

Reed is, after all, the man whoinfamously declaredthat he specializes in "guerrilla warfare," and bragged "I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag."

Reed also knowinglytook hundreds of thousands of dollarsfrom corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff to manipulate and mobilize his Religious Right allies to fight gambling expansions in order to protect Abramoff's client's gambling interests. Reed even had some of the money laundered through third-parties in order to try and conceal its origins, yet continues to insist to this day that he is"proud" of the "outstanding"work he did on behalf of Abramoff and his clients.

Ryan cites his Catholic faith to distract attention from his devotion to Ayn Rand and her infamous hostility to charity toward the poor. Reed himself preaches the Tea Party’s notion that federal government programs that serve the poor and elderly are unconstitutional. (And of course, for a big chunk of the Religious Right, the social safety net is not only unconstitutional, but unbiblical.)

The FFC held several events at the Republican National Convention featuring other notable “values” stalwarts such as Newt Gingrich, union-busting Scott Walker, anti-gay activist Jim Garlow and down-the-government-in-the-bathtub anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist.

Reed said earlier this year that American Christians must get down on their knees and beg God for forgiveness for “what we have allowed to happen” to the country – then God might have mercy on America (the implication being that God would help Romney defeat Obama).

Back in 2008, John McCain was embarrassed by watchdog groups over his participation in a fundraiser organized by Reed; in the end Reed did not attend. Four years later, the values-promoting Paul Ryan seems to have no hesitation embracing Reed, who exemplifies the self-promoting values of Ryan inspiration Ayn Rand.

People For the American Way launched a campaign today aimed at making sure Ohio women understand the danger of a Supreme Court nominated by Mitt Romney. The campaign, which includes television, direct mail, Internet advertising and telephone calls, exposes the power that Romney’s Supreme Court justices would have to eliminate abortion rights and undermine the rights of women in the workplace.

“Mitt Romney too often tries to hide his extremism on issues including reproductive rights and equal pay,” said Michael Keegan, President of People For the American Way. “But when it comes to his Supreme Court picks, he’s been clear: he’ll bow to the far right and deliver justices who would roll back the rights of women. A Romney presidency might only last four years, but his Supreme Court could threaten the rights of women for a lifetime.”

“Polling has made it indisputably clear that women, particularly women in Ohio, will be critical in deciding the outcome of this election,” said Marge Baker, Executive Vice President of People For the American Way. “We’re making sure that female voters have all the facts about the dangers of a Romney presidency.”

It is no secret that, for all of the talk of deeply held principles and stalwart Christian convictions, most Religious Right leaders are Republican Party cheerleaders who will eventually back the GOP presidential nominee, regardless of every declaration to the contrary they may have made in the past.

This fact was perfectly demonstrated back in 2008, when James Dobson spent the entire Republican primary telling everyone who would listen that "I cannot, and I will not, vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience" only to declare shortly before the election that "I am now supportive of Senator John McCain and his bid for the presidency."

Similarly, back during that 2008 primary, Robert Jeffress, who has never been shy about calling Mormonism a "cult," warned that Republicans could not nominate someone like Mitt Romney because "God always judges a nation that has a ruler who introduces false gods into that national life":

But yesterday, Jeffress was on with Bryan Fischer where he declared that America was engaged in "high-handed sins" and warned that failing to elect Romney would be "asking for God's judgment on our country":

Just to clarify: Jeffress once believed that electing a Mormon like Mitt Romney would cause God to judge this nation, but then Romney became the GOP nominee, at which point Jeffress decided that not electing Romney will cause God to judge this nation.

Buster Wilson of the American Family Association was riled up by President Obama’s performance in the final presidential debate, attacking him on Twitter for trying to “execute the angry black man persona.” On American Family Radio, Wilson added that Obama acted like a “junkyard dog” during the debate and is the “most arrogant” president ever.

You know what, Mitt Romney is I know now is a far better man that I would ever be, I believe I would have looked around and looked at the camera and I would have looked at Bob [Schieffer] and I would have said: you know what, I don’t have to take this, you’re supposed to be the President of the United States and you’re talking to me as some Chicago-area, like some Chicago-land junkyard dog, and he did. That was the most arrogant display I’ve ever seen by anyone with the title of President of the United States. But Mitt Romney sat there and smiled, he’s a big man.

Wilson, who appears to become deeply upset every time he is featured on Right Wing Watch, was also angry that we posted his comments arguing that gays and lesbians seek to “redefine all of life.” He said that the “homosexual practitioners” at “Big Gay” seek to use anti-bullying laws to censor and punish pastors. Of course, the Religious Right also said the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act would turn pastors into criminals and censor the Bible, but since their assertions were completely bogus and never materialized, they are now apparently employing the same exact claims to oppose bullying-prevention policies.

Big Gay wants the government to set aside people who choose homosexuality as a style and form of sexual behavior, and please let’s be completely honest about this that is exactly all that we’re talking about here, they want these people to have special protections under the law. How does that rob us of rights? These special protections, as is being lobbied for right now by the Southern Poverty Law Center and others, would prevent an evangelical Christian pastor from having the freedom of speech and the freedom of uninhibited religious exercise. Those special gay rights would require Christians not to speak against—would require us Christians not to speak against homosexual rights, practices and etcetera because if we did we could be charged with bullying and be censored for it. Churches, they want, could lose their tax exempt status.

There are those who are right now trying to financially harm Christians who don’t want to be a part of same-sex marriages, like florists and landowners, well Big Gay won’t have any of that, homosexual practitioners should have the right to get whatever they want or else, or else you and I suffer for it, we’ll find you they say, we’ll have you put out of business if you dare say no to helping us have a same-sex marriage event. Doesn’t matter if you are a Christian florist owner and believe that homosexual marriage is wrong religiously and thus don’t want to participate in it, doesn’t matter, the homosexuals are special and they want protected rights that protect them from we Christians to bully them. And they get to accuse us of bullying them even if we refuse to serve them.

Right Wing Watch it is not baseless to say that Big Gay wants to redefine all of life, for us, for evangelical Christians. They have claimed that homosexuals should change our military, they say that homosexual students have the right to live without hearing anyone disagree with hem or else be charged with bullying, that’s one way they want to redefine us all, simple disagreement now becomes hate, simple disagreement now becomes bullying and they will see to it that you are punished for it. Another example of the twisted and comical logic of Big Gay is their insistence that the gay fight is the same as the civil rights fight of the black community, now that Right Wing Watch is the silly and hysterical argument that you should be writing about. There is a new viral video of a I suppose gay pastor who has pushed this particular civil rights argument before the civil rights argument before the city council of Springfield, Missouri.

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What’s happened here is the first thing I noticed out of all this, besides the entire fallacy of the argument in total, was the fact that this guy was claiming to be a pastor of a church, a reverend he called himself, and got up there and belittled the word of God in the way that he did. That was the first thing that caught my heart. I couldn’t stand up and mock the word of God in how it was used by anybody incorrectly or how somebody else might misuse it, I couldn’t do it, I have too much high regard for the Holy Book of God to stand up and use it in a lie and use it in a mockery, but he did and I guess he’s okay with it.

Right-wing extremists are utterly petrified as to what will happen if President Obama is reelected for a second term, predicting that the world as we know it will be turned upside down. David Kupelian, the managing editor of WorldNetDaily and author of The Marketing of Evil, foresees that four more years of Obama will trigger civil disobedience and political violence, unleash rampant crime, cause a surge in depression and mental illness, and eventually elicit a “de facto secession.”

He predicts inescapable civil disobedience, prompted by the outrage at abortion rights. This noncompliance could even heighten and transform into political violence, Kupelian says, cautioning that “deep down the radical left would love nothing more than to see an actual eruption of violence on ‘the right,’ because it would serve to validate all their delusions and self-projections of hatred and violence.” Kupelian believes that Obama’s re-election would be comparable to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and even predicts an Obama reelection will lead to a “de facto secession,” in which conservative Americans “will be able to find each other over the Internet—and if they wish, move to a common geographic location.” These people can then exert power over their government, create their own businesses, and eventually separate from the rest of the country.

If working diligently within the system for constitutional government (and that includes peaceful, principled civil disobedience) is the noble response to intolerable injustice, the “dark side” response to the same provocation would be political violence. If Obama in a second term accelerates his relentless assault on the American system, there may be some who conclude all is lost and that their only response is to commit violent acts in the misguided belief they are channeling America’s founding generation – refreshing “the tree of liberty,” as Jefferson said, with “the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Indeed, truth be told, deep down the radical left would love nothing more than to see an actual eruption of violence on “the right,” because it would serve to validate all their delusions and self-projections of hatred and violence, of which they themselves are guilty but incessantly accuse normal Americans (i.e., “the tea party is racist and dangerous,” etc.).

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Speaking of evil, just as a small number of deranged people may be tempted to commit political violence, countless more will simply feel pushed over the edge by another four years of the wretched Obama economy and some will turn to crime.

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Likewise, a troubling father figure like Obama – who himself has never matured, but rather is a profoundly broken person and has developed into a ruthless and deceitful Chicago politician with a winsome persona – exerts a malignant “radiant” effect on the American mind and culture. Thus, while ours is already a nation of drug-takers, with approximately one in 10 adults currently taking dangerous anti-depressant drugs, I believe psychiatric drug dependency – and much more to the point, the mental-emotional conditions that lead to their use – will increase under a second Obama term.

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Just as the Sept. 11 attacks – expressions of unspeakable evil – brought to the surface great goodness, heroism, sacrifice and mutual cooperation in the service of one another, so would the re-election of Obama.

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In other words, people of like mind, who believe in traditional American constitutional values, will be able to find each other over the Internet – and if they wish, move to a common geographic location. They can pick a state – Texas, South Carolina, North Dakota, wherever – and do what the Mormons did in moving en masse to Utah.

Bishop E.W. Jackson of Staying True to America’s National Destiny (STAND) continuestotell (largely white) Religious Right leaders that black voters are about to move against President Obama in huge numbers to punish him for supporting marriage equality for gays and lesbians. While Jackson came in fourth place in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Virginia with less than 5 percent of the vote, he won accolades in the conservative movement for his new video comparing Democrats to salve masters.

While speaking to talk show host Janet Mefferd, Jackson claimed that his video is part of a larger move of God to move African American voters against Obama and other Democrats. He told Mefferd that black Christians are “overwhelmingly” supporting his mission to punish the Democrats for backing gay equality, saying that the party is “in rebellion against God” and lost the confidence of Black America.

Unfortunately for Jackson, polls show Obama receiving over 90 percent of the black vote, in line with pastelections showing tremendous support for Democratic presidential candidates among African Americans.

Jackson: When the Democrat Party [sic] said we’re making same-sex marriage a part of our platform and the President came out in support of it I think those were straws that broke the camel’s back and people say ‘you know, we’ve had it.’ Black folks have voted overwhelmingly against these things when they’ve come up on state constitutional questions and now I think many are saying, ‘you know what I voted for this president the first time, I cannot vote for him again and I cannot support this party because it’s in rebellion against God.’

Mefferd: What has been the reaction, you have mentioned a lot of people have been reacting to your video and overwhelmingly you’ve had great support from black pastors, what about rank and file black Christians listening to what you’ve had to say, are they with you?

Jackson: I think overwhelmingly yes. I think there’s a generational issue here and people ask me, ‘how can the black community support people who just absolutely reject their most core values’ and I said because it’s not logical, it’s emotional. There’s a sense of fear, there’s a sense that this is what we’re supposed to do, but I think younger people are coming along. I noticed younger pastors, when I said younger I’m not talking about 20s and 30s I think in the 50’s they’re saying ‘you know what we need to take another look at this?’ I am finding that rank and file black folks have come up to me and they’ve said: how do I change my registration? I’ve voted for this party in the past, I’ve been a kneejerk Democrat, I’m never going to do that again. I’ve had people come to me in tears and say ‘thank you for waking me up.’ God is doing something Janet, it’s far beyond me and that video, I believe God is doing something to stir the hearts of His people as an eagle stirs a nest.

Later, while discussing the manufactured scandal regarding the New Black Panther Party case, Jackson said that the Justice Department has “turned loose their investigative powers on anybody who seems to question them” and that the Obama administration is “going to try to hurt you” if you stand in the way of their supposedly anti-Christian agenda.

Jackson: I complained when they intimidated voters during the last election and you can imagine what kind of response I got from Eric Holder’s Department of Justice, absolutely none. They ignored me. In fact if you press too hard apparently they have actually turned loose their investigative powers on anybody who seems to question them, they’ve done that on more than one occasion to people. So it’s just clear to me that we’ve got in a sense an administration that’s decided it’s not interested in God, the Bible, Christianity or any of that, it’s interested in pursuing its own willful agenda and if you get in the way, they’re going to try to hurt you. We just need to make sure that we are prayed up and we’re trusting in God because He is our ultimate protection anyway. Even though STAND does not endorse candidates, we’re standing on principle; I trust that the outcome of this election will at least begin to move the country back toward more traditional values, toward our Constitution, our Declaration and our Judeo-Christian principles.

Janet Mefferd brought Washington Times columnist Jeffrey Kuhner on her radio show yesterday to shower praise on his wildly anti-gay column attacking Tammy Baldiwn, the openly gay Democratic congresswoman running for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin. They kicked off the program by mocking gay Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank’s marriage to his “male husband or wife” and Kuhner joked that he will support same-sex marriage only if Frank or his husband can get pregnant.

Mefferd: I love this line, the left got so mad at you for saying this, you say, ‘the last thing Wisconsin needs is Barney Frank in a dress’ and I thought, who is that insulting, Barney Frank’s manhood? I’m not even sure. Aren’t they transgender-friendly, why are they mad about that?

Kuhner: He’s married now and I’ve issued a challenge to Barney Frank. I said, Barney, the purpose of marriage is to have children, now if you and your male husband or wife, I don’t know how to put this, your male partner, if one of you can get pregnant because now they’re in the honeymoon phase, they’re lovers, I said if one of you can get pregnant and you can pull off a miracle I will openly support gay marriage. So I am waiting for a miracle from Barney.

Mefferd: That’s very magnanimous, well good for you.

Kuhner had previously told Mefferd that the LGBT community promotes “civilizational collapse” and is “even worse than the radical Islamists” and “brutal dictatorships,” and yesterday maintained that the “gay gestapo” is the “most frightening, scariest lobby” in politics. He said Baldwin’s Republican opponent Tommy Thompson should not have apologized over a campaign aide’s smear email targeting Baldwin for attending a gay pride rally, arguing that a pride parade is like a “bordello” and “pornography on asphalt.” Kuhner advised Thompson to remind voters that homosexuality is “destructive” and “harmful” to children.

Kuhner: Here you have a woman who is not just an open lesbian, she’s been an active promoter of the gay lifestyle, she’s an active promoter of gay pride, she’s always in these marches. I’ve been to some of these marchers, for example, you go to the one in San Francisco, it’s a bordello. The public displays, this is not fit for people to see. It’s basically pornography in public, on asphalt. When I look at this and I see the way Tammy Baldwin has behaved and conducted herself and the values that she preaches and champions I don’t understand why Tommy Thompson is apologizing, in fact I would do the opposite. If I were Tommy Thompson I would say very simply: marriage is between a man and a woman, we do not believe that homosexual behavior is natural and moral. Every major faith: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, going back thousands of years, in most cultures today, in most civilizations today, understand marriage to be between a man and a woman.

If Tammy Baldwin wants to be lesbian in the privacy of her own bedroom, that’s her business. But when she makes it a public issue, when she starts promoting a lifestyle that we know is immoral and we know is destructive and we know has a harmful impact, especially on children. Children who are adopted by homosexual couples clearly don’t do as well as children that are adopted by heterosexual couples. Why? Because children need — newsflash to the liberals — a mommy and a daddy. Instead what we have is the gay gestapo who go out and try to intimidate morally, economically, professionally and personally anybody who speaks out against the homosexual agenda. After my piece came out—Janet I said this on your show before and I’ll say it again—the homosexual lobby is to me the most frightening, scariest lobby whenever I publish a piece. They are the worst.

They ended the show by warning that gays promote a form of “totalitarianism” and “will do everything possible to destroy” those who are in their way. “Either you accept homosexuality or you are burnt at the stake,” Kuhner said.

Kuhner: There’s nothing tolerant about it, there’s nothing inclusive about it, there’s nothing compassionate about it. They preach an intellectual, moral totalitarianism. Either you accept homosexuality or you are burnt at the stake, professionally your career will be finished, and they will do everything possible to destroy you. Well to me, that’s not America.

Mefferd: No, that’s not America and that’s why this agenda has to be stopped. As you said very well, it’s one thing to allow people the personal freedom to conduct themselves the way they choose in their own home and not have the state intrude into people’s bedrooms, but when it becomes a matter of public policy, as you say very well, it affects all of us, it affects our religious freedom when it comes down to it.

Glenn Beck was mystified by Mitt Romney's performance in Monday night's final debate and frustrated that Romey did not take advantage of what Beck believed were the dozens of opportunities for him to eviscerate President Obama over his claims and statements.

But while Beck could not, for the life of him, understand what Romney's strategy was, he is confident that it was the right strategy because Romney is "being guided" by God and apparently God's message to Romney was that "it’s important to be less contentious [so] it may be he’s doing what the Lord wants him to do right now" ... because he is just like George Washington:

People For the American Way President Michael Keegan responds to the Log Cabin Republicans’ endorsement of Mitt Romney:

I’m not surprised that the Log Cabin Republicans have gone against the best interests of LGBT Americans in endorsing Mitt Romney. Responding to their rationalization would normally not be worth the time, but one of their attempts at self-justification deserves a response. Log Cabin claims, ‘Those who point fearfully to potential vacancies on the United States Supreme Court, we offer a reminder: five of the eight federal court rulings against DOMA were written by Republican-appointed judges. Mitt Romney is not Rick Santorum, and Paul Ryan is not Michele Bachmann.’

The Log Cabin Republicans have willfully ignored everything Mitt Romney has said about the Supreme Court.

Romney has said that he will appoint Supreme Court justices and lower court judges in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who are both adamantly opposed to protecting the rights of gay people under the Constitution. Both dissented in Lawrence v. Texas, the ruling that ended criminal sodomy laws. In his dissent, Scalia accused the Court’s majority of signing on to the ‘homosexual agenda.’ These are the kind of Justices that Mitt Romney has promised to nominate to the Supreme Court.

We can also look to Romney’s choice of Robert Bork to lead his judicial advisory committee, a clear signal that he’s ready to cede judicial nominations to the Religious Right. Bork has vehemently disagreed with every pro-gay rights decision the Supreme Court has ever made, and even claims that marriage equality will lead to ‘man-boy associations’ and ‘polygamy.’ This is who Romney has picked to advise him on judicial nominations.

Romney doesn’t just support amending the Constitution to prohibit marriage equality – an amendment that every justice would be obliged to enforce. Everything Romney has said about judicial nominations indicates that he will appoint Supreme Court justices and lower court judges who will do lasting damage to the rights of all Americans – including LGBT people. No LGBT American or anyone who believes in equality should be fooled into thinking otherwise.

Michael Brown in his latest column argues that President Obama is not a Christian because he supports gay equality and opposes the criminalization of abortion, and is “more a disciple of Saul Alinsky than of Jesus.” He compares Obama negatively to Martin Luther King, Jr., whom he said was a “great unifier” while Obama is the “great divider.”

According to CNN writer John Blake, President Obama is “a religious pioneer” who, in the opinion of some scholars and pastors, is “also expanding the definition of who can be a Christian by challenging the religious right’s domination of the national stage.” To be candid, and with due respect to the office of the president, Obama should be viewed as a religious apostate more than a religious pioneer. He has shown an extraordinary disregard for society’s most innocent and vulnerable members (babies in the womb), he has misused the Bible to defend the radical redefinition of marriage, and he has trashed religious freedoms with his health care mandates to the point that groups as disparate as Hobby Lobby and Catholic hospitals are suing the government. This is hardly the legacy of a religious pioneer.

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Putting aside the fact that “the religious right” is used as a term of disparagement in contrast with what Blake calls “progressive Christianity,” the truth is that conservative Christians lead the way in worldwide humanitarian relief efforts, they continue to build hospitals and orphanages and schools in many nations, they are active in drug and alcohol rehab programs in the inner cities of America, and they are at the forefront of the pro-life, pro-adoption movement.

As for their opposition to gay activism, it is the natural offshoot of their belief in marriage as defined by Jesus Himself (one man and one woman joined together for life), it is in keeping with their high esteem for sexual purity, and it is in harmony with their wholly justified concerns that homosexual activism is the principle threat to our freedoms of conscience, religion, and speech. From a biblical perspective, President Obama is on the wrong side of these critically important issues.

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But Barack Obama is no Martin Luther King, as our president has proven himself to be a great divider whereas King was a great unifier. And King, for his part, would not have shouted “amen” to the sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s mentor, whose often shrill version of black liberation theology formed the ideological basis of Obama’s Christianity. With spiritual foundations like that, it is no wonder that the president could make the obscene comparison between “Christ sacrificing Himself on our behalf” and gay marriage.

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In that regard, Obama is more a disciple of Saul Alinsky than of Jesus.

Jeffress told Janet Mefferd, who has also criticized Romney over his faith, that it is still better to vote for Romney, even though he is a member of a “cult” and “false religion” that believes in a “multiplicity of gods,” than Obama because of his stances on marriage equality and abortion rights. The pastor said defeating Obama is even worth potentially giving Mormon missionaries a tool to bolster “legitimacy of their faith” and make more converts.

I still think there are concerns out there among evangelicals about voting for a Mormon. I’ve made peace with it; the way I’ve made peace with it is to make it very clear on programs like yours that Mormonism is a cult, it is a false religion, Mormons worship a multiplicity of gods, they deny the Bible, in fact they think the Bible is so error-filled there had to be a second book of revelations. I want to make it very clear that I don’t believe Mormonism is Christianity but I do think that in this case it is better to vote for a non-Christian who supports biblical principles like life and marriage than voting for a professing Christian like Barack Obama who absolutely repudiates what Jesus Christ said about some key issues.

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I don’t want to minimize the Mormonism issue. I had probably the most well-known pastor in America say to me last week; you know one concern is the mission implications of this, Mormons are so involved in missions overseas, they’ll be able to point to a Mormon president as legitimacy of their faith. So I think we need to be clear that Mormonism is a false religion that leads people away from rather than toward the true God, but having said that we are making this choice in spite of that.

He warned that America is “about to go over the moral and spiritual cliff from which there is no return” if Obama is re-elected, asserting that his administration is “openly involved in high-handed sins” and shaking its “fist in the face of God” on matters like same-sex marriage.

You know in the Old Testament the Bible had what it called high-handed sins, sins that were like a clenched fist in the face of God. We are now seeing an administration that is openly involved in high-handed sins: the embracing of gay marriage. A friend of mine said to me recently, ‘think about this just ten years ago if a pastor or a sandwich company were to say marriage is between a husband and a wife, a man and a woman, no one would have batted an eye at that, but today that is labeled as hate speech,’ now what has changed? It’s not the Bible or the message that has changed, it shows what has happened in our culture. I know this sounds alarmist but I believe we are at the precipice, we are at a tipping point in our country right now, we are about to go over not the fiscal cliff, we are about to go over the moral and spiritual cliff from which there is no return, and that is why it is imperative for Christians to get out and vote in this election.

During Tuesday’s presidential debate, Mitt Romney continued to sell himself as a turnaround artist and savior of the economy—a former CEO whose stellar business acumen will create an abundance of jobs (12 million in four years, to be exact), champion small businesses, and improve the middle class.

But what Romney failed to mention is that when he inherited Massachusetts’ damaged economy in 2003, he was unable to spur the economic growth he had promised in his gubernatorial campaign. And it doesn’t stop at an unsuccessful economic policy. Many of the “accomplishments” that Romney touted last night, such as his education policies and his advocacy of women in the workplace, were futile as well. If we delve deeper into Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts and look past the lies he spouts, we can foreshadow what a Romney presidency would look like. And it’s not a very promising vision.

Last night at the debate, Romney promoted his five-point plan, alleging that he “knows why jobs come and go.” He claimed that he knew “what it takes to get this economy going.” But does he? Here is how Romney’s leadership played out in the Massachusetts economy from 2003 to 2007:

Though Romney assaults Obama’s economic record, job growth in the U.S. has been swifter under Obama than job growth in Massachusetts under Romney.

Romney also likes to flaunt the education policies he put in place in Massachusetts. Last night at the debate, he boasted about his John and Abigail Adams Scholarship, which he claimed would send the top quarter of each high school class to the Massachusetts college of their choice tuition-free. But this is not the full picture. Here is the reality of Romney’s education policies in Massachusetts, according to a report in the Boston Globe:

Romney’s valued John and Abigail Adams Scholarships cover only tuition at state colleges, not fees , which account for more than 80 percent of yearly costs at some schools. Just a quarter of the recipients actually choose to attend state colleges.

Massachusetts students regularly score at the top on national and international tests. But that achievement is largely due to the state’s 1993 landmark education reform law.

Mitt Romney campaigned for governor in 2002 in favor of eradicating the nation’s first bilingual education law and instead immersing non-English speakers in classrooms where only English would be taught.

In 2006, three years after the law Romney campaigned for went into effect, new state tests showed that 83 percent of students learning English as a second language in the third through twelfth grades could not read, write, speak or understand English well enough for regular classes after their first year in Massachusetts schools.

When asked about pay equity, Romney highlighted his efforts as governor of Massachusetts to hire women to work in his administration. However he does not have a history of appointing women to high-level positions in the private sector, nor did he appoint many women to judicial positions: